Red is touting a blog post by "Professor Engram," which purports to show that civilian violence in Iraq is down since the surge began. In other words, Petraeus is right and the surge is working.

Specifically, Red claims that Engram

"refuted the moveon.org claim and analysis completely. You DO agree with the moveon.org ad in terms of it's claim that the "books were cooked"..?" I could be wrong but it seems like that was your basic take over at Minerva a while back.

At first I was going to ignore Red since I've said nothing about MoveOn and I did not specifically argue that the books were cooked. Mostly mindless "discussions" involving people calling each other names are not of much interest to me.

Yes, Engram compares the summer decline in violence 2007 to the same time period in 2006, but where is the data for 2005 or 2004 or 2003? Using only the data Engram highlights, it is clear that the August 2007 violence is now down to roughly the level of January through April 2006. This very strongly suggests that civilian violence in Iraq remains very high and that the surge will have no meaningful long-term effect. After all, the surge is about to end for lack of troops and the goal was not merely to return the violence to an already high level.

Engram says nothing about refugees. Iraq's population is about 27.5 million; yet, over 100,000 people are apparently fleeing Iraq per month. Over a one year period, that's over 4% of the population. We would expect nearly 100 fewer monthly dead civilians in Iraq just from a reduced population base.

Past ethnic cleansing has also likely contributed to the decline in violence. The potential victims have segregated themselves.

And, of course, none of the body count data addresses the social issue I highlighted in my critique. Most Iraqis think it is OK to kill American troops -- and the number saying that has increased significantly since the surge started. Counterinsurgency cannot succeed in that context.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

This past week, the US and nearly 200 other states agreed to an international treaty that will reduce greenhouse gases. The BBC:

Nearly 200 governments have agreed a faster timetable for phasing out chemicals that deplete the ozone layer and contribute to global warming.

The schedule for eliminating hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) comes forward by 10 years under the agreement signed at a UN meeting in Montreal.

Notice, this came out of the 1980s Montreal Protocol, not the 1990s Kyoto Protocol. While the latter is the climate change agreement, the former was designed to save the ozone layer from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

Still, the deal is remarkable. It is arguably the most meaningful environmental agreement this decade. Even developing countries have agreed to ban HCFCs. And there are credible estimates suggesting that this deal will be up to twice as effective as the Kyoto accord in preventing emissions of greenhouse gas emissions. HCFCs are bad.

One major country displayed particular enthusiasm about taking climate-related action outside of the climate process. Reportedly, their delegation had “marching orders” to bring climate into the ozone process before an upcoming high-level meeting on climate change next week, and thus draw attention away from the UNFCCC....It also provides an easy way to take action on climate change and shift the focus away from the Kyoto Protocol.

The UNFCCC is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Kyoto is a protocol to that agreement.

Oh, Dimitrov also reminds readers that the Montreal Protocol has NOT solved the problem of ozone depletion:

The ultimate weakness of the process is that, despite all political successes in international cooperation, the ecological problem of ozone depletion has not been solved. As the scientific presentations during the meeting revealed, current stratospheric ozone levels remain low, the Antarctic hole is at its worst, and skin cancer cases are expected to multiply several times in the next decade.

The meeting did not really address methyl bromide, which depletes ozone, nor the problem of illegal trade.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Professor Roger Tobin has a new paper (pdf warning) soon to be published about the effects of steroid use on home run rates. He estimates that even a modest increase in muscle mass can have a substantial effect on HR rate.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Somewhat quietly, the United States is trying to close a loophole in the Non-proliferation Treaty. The NPT allows states to pursue the nuclear fuel cycle for peaceful energy-related purposes -- including uranium enrichment.

Under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a limited number of countries including the U.S. and Russia would provide uranium fuel to other nations for powering reactors to generate electricity, and then retrieve the fuel for reprocessing. This would deprive those nations of their own nuclear fuel enrichment programs, which can be used to make atomic arms.

These are the latest 11 states to join the partnership: Australia, Bulgaria, Ghana, Hungary, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Ukraine.

Do you see any worrisome nuclear threshold states in that group?

Like the Proliferation Security Initiative, the GNEP is a US-led "coalition of the willing" that does not work like a traditional multilateral organization. New international organizations typically form only after a sizable group of states agree to the negotiated terms of a particular treaty.

With GNEP, the US can start offering selective incentives to every state that agrees to live by American rules.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

For the title of this post, I've quoted a line from "Groundhog Day," the classic Bill Murray movie about a guy who discovers that he's literally reliving the same day of his life -- again and again. In the film, everyone around the main character says and does the same thing every day unless he changes the pattern.

The speech setting and content are reminiscent of Vice President Dick Cheney's VFW speech in August 2002. Indeed, many of the President's claims about Iran sound eerily familiar to those who recall the buildup to the Iraq war.

If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year.....America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

Bush, August 2007:

Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.

Regime change

Bush, 2002:

regime change in Iraq is the only certain means of removing a great danger to our nation.

Bush 2007:

We seek an Iran whose government is accountable to its people -- instead of to leaders who promote terror and pursue the technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons.

War

Bush, October 2002:

The time for denying, deceiving, and delaying has come to an end. Saddam Hussein must disarm himself -- or, for the sake of peace, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.

Bush, 2007:

Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. And that is why the United States is rallying friends and allies around the world to isolate the regime, to impose economic sanctions. We will confront this danger before it is too late.

As president, I will condition future American aid on progress by Pakistan, including strengthening the reach of police forces and working more effectively with tribal leaders and their members to ensure their acceptance of the government. But I want to be clear about one thing: if we have actionable intelligence about imminent terrorist activity and the Pakistan government refuses to act, we will.

By including the word "imminent," Edwards is highlighting his agreement with longstanding international norms.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Though I have not seen a followup to the various speculative media reports from last month -- perhaps it was a trial balloon? -- Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is apparently being officially designated as terror organization. As the Washington Post explained in August, the elite 125,000-member force will be the

"first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said -- a highly unusual move because it is part of a government."

it's either more bluster or, ominously, a wind-up for a strike on Iran. Officials I talk to in Washington vote for a hit on the IRGC, maybe within the next six months. And they think that as long as we have bombers and missiles in the air, we will hit Iran's nuclear facilities. An awe and shock campaign, lite, if you will. But frankly they're guessing; after Iraq the White House trusts no one, especially the bureaucracy.

Here's the "regime change" logic likely to underpin any future attack on the Guard units:

there's a belief among neo-cons that the IRGC is the one obstacle to a democratic and friendly Iran. They believe that if we were to get rid of the IRGC, the clerics would fall, and our thirty-years war with Iran over. It's another neo-con delusion, but still it informs White House thinking.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Earlier today, I blogged "Neorealism and hypocrisy 101" over at the Duck of Minerva. The post is about my latest journal article, which is now available. As the title suggests, I take neorealists to task for their apparent academic hypocrisy.

Last Friday, August 31, I blogged "War with Iran?" The post focuses on a new study produced in Britain about US capability to wage war on Iran without major military preparations -- or public debate.

Wednesday the 29th, I posted "Jacksonian baseball." The piece discusses a new study finding that southern white baseball pitchers like Senator Jim Bunning are more likely to hit a batter when they feel their "honor" has been threatened in the context of the game. They are like Walter Russell Mead's foreign policy Jacksonians.